Wall St ends flat; late gains on Fed Powell report

U.S. stocks closed flat on Thursday, coming back from sharp losses after the open, while Apple fell more than 2 percent to lead a decline in technology shares.

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 5.44 points, or 0.02 percent, to 23,163.04, the S&P 500 gained 0.84 points, or 0.03 percent, to 2,562.1 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 19.15 points, or 0.29 percent, to 6,605.07.

The S&P turned positive minutes ahead of the close after Politico reported that Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell is the leading candidate to become President Donald Trump's nominee for Fed chair, in what would be a continuation of the current stock market-friendly monetary policy. (Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch and Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Nick Zieminski)